Red Bull Art of Motion

Red Bull Art of Motion is a competition taking place in Vienna, Austria, based around freedom of movement[1] although it was primarily a free running competition. The competition places competitors in a crafted arena of plateaus at varying heights, sizes and distances, as well as a variety of other obstacles such as bars and walls.

There have so far been two Art of Motion competitions, taking place in 2007 and 2009.

Art of Motion 2007

Took place on October 6, 2007 in Vienna, Austria.

Notable occurrences

Ryan Doyle seriously broke his leg after attempting a double cork from height onto a thick crash mat. He missed the crash mat with one leg, landing on concrete, and over-rotated causing him to nearly perform a triple cork[2].

Art of Motion 2009 (Austria)

The Red Bull Art of motion 2009 took place in the Vienna Arena, Austria, on May 22, 2009 in front of 2,500 spectators[1]. 27 free runners from 12 nations tried to win a place in the final 8 with their qualifying run.[1] One of the main changes from the format of 2007's event was that all crash mats had been removed, leaving only solid floor for athletes to perform on.

Initially each athlete was to be given 2 rounds for qualification and the opportunity to use their best score, but the event was running an hour behind schedule, so Red Bull took the scores from the first runs and used them to decide on the finalists. This meant that competitors who used the 1st run as a warm up were out and could do nothing about it, despite landing moves like triple corks and double fronts/backs in training without problem[3].

For each section the athletes would be awarded up to 20 points, meaning that for any run they could score anything up to 100 points per judge. The average of all of the judges' votes was used to determine the rankings[3].

Some people voiced distaste at the fact that Ez, the Urban Freeflow manager was judging a competition containing Urban Freeflow athletes, but it has been mentioned that Ez was actually the most conservative with his voting, even giving Blue and Livewire the lowest scores out of all the judges[3].

Notable occurrences

Delian Dimitrov won the sickest trick with a double sideflip between two platforms to begin his final run, however he injured his ankle on landing[6]. He tried to continue his run but stopped soon after, and ending up with a score of 0.

Ryan Houchin attempted a wallflip from a high platform with a gap between the platform and the wall, but didn't make the distance and only managed to get one foot back on the platform, and fell a considerable distance (around 25 feet) through the gap between the platform and the wall[7]. He managed to avoid serious injury[8] by using his feet against the wall to slow himself and grabbing hold of a power cord.[9]

External links

Art of Motion 2009 (Sweden)

The first Swedish Red Bull Art of Motion took place on the 22nd of August 2009 at Kärnan in Helsingborg, south of Sweden[10]. The course was built around a castle, which results in an interesting layout and variety in heights[11].